I'll admit - when Reid first came forward with his claim I was fairly sure this was a stunt. 0% in taxes for multiple years? But Reid has been acting quite serious about his allegations - releasing formal statements, bringing it up several times, and genuinely defending his assertion.

This wasn't the response I expected from someone trolling. Reid's entire approach has struck me as odd.

I still find it hard to believe although we can safely assume that Rmoney had a lower tax rate than 13% for at least one year.

Bontesla:I'll admit - when Reid first came forward with his claim I was fairly sure this was a stunt. 0% in taxes for multiple years? But Reid has been acting quite serious about his allegations - releasing formal statements, bringing it up several times, and genuinely defending his assertion.

This wasn't the response I expected from someone trolling. Reid's entire approach has struck me as odd.

I still find it hard to believe although we can safely assume that Rmoney had a lower tax rate than 13% for at least one year.

I never really considered this to be a possibility.

I've been wondering how Romney can possibly fix it if the returns ever come out. Can he retroactively cut a check to the IRS to bring him to the expected rate for his tax bracket? Would doing that actually make it worse?

While that is an interesting theory, really all that matters is that Mitt keeps stonewalling. I wouldn't say he's falling on his sword, but each day this issue is like a couple of paper cuts and well, you know what happens when they start piling up.

EyeballKid:If anybody today needs help illustrating and/or defining the word "desperation," please point them over to Smitty04's posts in this thread.

I especially like the "Reid is foolish for accusing Rmoney of a Felony!" line that so many (including his cartoon) are falling back on. It's so indicative of their complete abandonment of truth as a political tool.

It both is a lie, and an obfuscation of the real issue. Kudos, right wing shills. You should be proud.

I swear to god the right-wing buzzwords are the best part of this election. "Chicago style." "Alinsky." "Socialism." "ACORN." "Solyndra." "Union thugs." "Liberal media."

How about you guys try actually saying something for a change and not speaking in cliche soundbites.

Impossible. Completely impossible. That welfare issue earlier this week? Immediately, it was Romney saying he's going to "put the work back in welfare". If it can't fit on a bumper sticker, it ain't worth saying (or reading or remembering) for these people.

That's not what "Chicago style" politics means, and Obama spent much of his early political career fighting against the Chicago machine.

Source

Also, "Chicago-style politics" is a reference to the style of politics played by Chicago politicos as far back as 1928 (33 years before Obama was allegedly born), but maybe only since the early 1970s (when Obama was allegedly in high school).

What's important is Reid's reputation as an honest, trustworthy career politician, and that his reaction makes Romney look sneaky, calculating, and untrustworthy. Reid's accusation is doing a fine job of damaging Romney in the swing states. There's no reason to shift the focus away from Romney's weird and unreasonable reaction.

Cletus C.:So much for the other popular theory that Reid pulled it out of his ass.

Even if he did, that doesn't change the fact that Romney still won't release his taxes like presidential candidates have been doing for decades and all we can do is speculate as to why. It's obvious Mitt doesn't like all the speculation, especially the stuff he says isn't true. Why wouldn't he want to end it once and for all? Could releasing the returns be more damaging than the speculation? That's the only thing that really makes any sense.

Bontesla:I'll admit - when Reid first came forward with his claim I was fairly sure this was a stunt. 0% in taxes for multiple years? But Reid has been acting quite serious about his allegations - releasing formal statements, bringing it up several times, and genuinely defending his assertion.

This wasn't the response I expected from someone trolling. Reid's entire approach has struck me as odd.

I still find it hard to believe although we can safely assume that Rmoney had a lower tax rate than 13% for at least one year.

I never really considered this to be a possibility.

My impression of Reid has always been that's publicly pretty cautious. His stepping out and biatch-slapping Romney didn't seem to be his usual style. If I had to lay money on it I'd say that someone (Huntsman, perhaps) with first-hand knowledge and Reid's trust told him that Romney's federal income tax rates were extremely low (near, if not exactly zero) for a long period. Reid then slightly exaggerated it to "no taxes for ten years." I'm sure Romney's accounts are all perfectly legal, but I would guess that his average rate for 2000-2010 was very low (less than 13%, probably 5-10%). Perhaps he touched zero federal income tax a couple of years due to clever accounting and he may have also taken the 2009 Swiss bank account amnesty. All perfectly legal and perfectly damning.

Skleenar:EighthDay: In all fairness, saying him going from a 44 to a 43 as "absolutely tanking" is quite the hyperbole, even from Kos.

Well, except he's gone from 45+ to 43, while at the same time Obama has increased from 47 to 49. Which is a 4 point increase in spread in about 2 weeks.

It's hard to describe that as anything but "tanking". I'm not sure why you have decided to pick a semantic fight to claim some sort of clear-eyed superiority.

It's hyperbolic and premature. It's a 2 point shift. Sure, that means a change in the spread 4 points, but that's not "tanking." That's a slight drop. I'm glad to see the drop, but I'd hardly count it as "tanking."

Part of the reason I don't read Kos is the same reason I don't read the right-wing spin machines. It makes bigger deals out of things than they should be.

Is it notable that he took a 2 point drop? Absolutely, especially since the numbers have been consistent prior to that. Should it be construed as some sign that his campaign is on a death spiral when the numbers have been consistent up until that point? No, not unless it's the start of a trend - and one data point does not a trend make.

Since the numbers had been steady between 44.1 and 45.4, you could say the median was 44.75.

A drop from a 44.75 average to 43 (since I can't see what decimal it is, I'll just use 43.0 as the most drastic shift) is a drop of 1.75, or only 1.1 from the previous July low of 44.1.

While this is worthy of discussion and additional investigation, to say that the campaign is tanking over a 1-2% shift is going overboard - in my opinion.

Sure, the evidence is circumstantial, but still pretty solid, wouldn't you say?

Not really, but whatever you want. Much better than Reid's 'A little bird told me.' bullshiat. "Plausible" would have been a far, FAR better choice of words than "solid". But hey, we can't all be "journalists", now can we?